LAW - 659A European Union Law: Policy and Diplomacy

(2 hrs.)

This is a basic course intended to introduce students to the law and institutions of the European Union (EU). The EU is an organization which began as the European Coal and Steel Community of six states in 1952, but which has greatly expanded in both its membership and the scope of its activities since then. There are currently twenty-seven member states with applications for membership pending from several others, including candidate states such as Turkey, Croatia and FYROM (Macedonia). The scope of the EU’s powers, which are shared with member states in a set of arrangements even more complex than that of the US’s ‘marble-cake federalism’, ranges from core market-integration and market-liberalization activities to the growing field of ‘justice and home affairs’ (including immigration, policing, criminal and civil law coordination) and even to aspects of foreign affairs and defense. The law of the EU, a complex edifice which has been constructed alongside and over the law of its member states, comprises a vast and detailed body of treaties, case law and regulation of every kind. For instance, in the aftermath of the European financial crisis there are newly created measures designed to reinforce the architecture of the economic and monetary Union while creating a new “fiscal compact” under which countries in the euro zone are bound to write a ‘golden rule’ on balanced budget into their national constitution with automatic correction mechanisms if the law is breached. Any introductory course will necessarily be very selective, and this course provides simply a first look at the EU. The course aims primarily to provide an entry point into the study of this unique political arrangement which, despite the various labels - superstate, federation, international organization - which are sometimes used to describe it, continues to defy ready categorization.